The Honorable Christopher Dodd
Chairman
Subcommittee on Children and Families
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Dodd:

Thank you for your decades of advocacy on behalf of our nation's children. The undersigned organizations write today to share our support for S. 2758, the Access to High Quality Child Care Act.

The General Accounting Office, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council all have documented the shortage of child care options available to children with disabilities. Most recently, the landmark From Neurons to Neighborhoods, National Academy Press (2000) reported the following findings:

" Forty-five percent of mothers of infants with disabilities do not work outside the home for pay because they cannot find child care. These mothers are less likely to reenter the labor force by the time their child is one, and work fewer hours than mothers of typically developing children.

" As greater numbers of children with disabilities enroll or attempt to enroll in child care programs in the community, child care providers and early childhood educators are increasingly faced with the inadequacy of their professional training and the paucity of expert consultation to help them address the special needs of children with disabilities. This situation is exacerbated by the massive shortage of mental health professionals to deal with very young children combined with the uneven level of skill and excessive rate of turnover among child care workers.

S. 2758 will go a long way to enable states to meet the needs of families with children with disabilities. The undersigned organizations urge the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to approve this legislation. We look forward to working with you on its enactment this year.

Thank you for considering our views.

Adaptive Physical Activity Council
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Association on Mental Retardation
American Dance Therapy Association
American Foundation For the Blind
American Group Psychotherapy Association
American Music Therapy Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Autism Society of America
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Brain Injury Association
COPAA
Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders
Council for Exceptional Children
Council for Learning Disabilities
Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children
Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children
Easter Seals
Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health
Higher Education Consortium for Special Education
IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association
Learning Disabilities Association
National Association of Developmental Disabilities Councils
National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems
National Association of State Directors of Special Education
National Center for Learning Disabilities
National Coalition on Deaf-Blindness
National Mental Health Association
Research Institute for Independent Living
TASH
The Arc of the United States
Tourette Syndrome Association
United Cerebral Palsy Associations